Embrace Repetition (The Little Book of Talent)

[eves_banished_children]

This is a true story. My brother is a senior software engineer working in Silicon Valley. He said his boss hired this expert database guru to optimize the company's enterprise database to run faster. Engineers have tried everything but no further performance were made. The guy came in a for a week or so and made it significantly faster. He was duly paid several hundred thousands for a week's worth of work. And management said he was totally worth it.

This database guru probably spent people spent years or even decades learning his craft and become world class. When it comes to execution it only took a week or so.

Similar anecdote can be said of any field about expert preparation time vs execution. An Olympic diver makes a perfect triple spin then dive into the pool for all to see which lasts about 20 seconds. But it took him/her decades of training to execute that dive.

The point is training/research/trading simulation/study are all preparation for the right opportunity. When the right opportunity comes then all that practice,research,study, etc. will enable one to 1) recognize the opportunity 2) execute on it flawlessly with size and conviction.

Of course the best way to learn is through experience. But trading, unlike other fields, mistakes can cost you a lot of money. Why not practice it when it's not costing you money and refine your strategies & execution to be near flawless.
So, when the right opportunity comes you can load the boat for huge profits.

I had all sorts of biases that I'm slowly getting rid of one by one through sim trading and real life trading. I'm also practicing on making entries and exits even more precise. Time it just right and get price improvement on entries and exits.

I agree with most of this, but am perplexed why you said it in response to my post. I simply remarked that you're always in a position, so practice or not, you have to decide if that position is what you want to be in. I totally agree deliberate practice is the way to go, see my post earlier in this thread where I made remarks about that very thing, ... but whether you have that deliberate practice or not, you have to take a position.

I think a reasonable argument is to say that you should limit your time frame if you don't know what you're doing, meaning that you shouldn't actively trade on short time scales unless you really know what you're doing. Without practice, sticking to dollar cost averaging, etc, or choosing a mutual fund might be the best you can hope for, because the more you trade the more you're probably going to lose if you haven't practiced deliberately to trade actively. The more active you are as a trader, the better you need to be to avoid losing your stake.

 

[misterkel]

I've read that book. It's interesting, reminiscent of Gladwell's work on talent (book?). Key point in Little B of T is - type of practice is critically important. Practice what is both difficult for you and useful for the task. That's how the greats get great - shooting 100 free throws AFTER practice every day - if that's their weakness.

 

[aquarian1]

In The Little Book of Talent, one of the core ideas of to get better is to do a lot of practice(deliberate practice).

I thought the key to this quote was the "deliberate practice'.

To me this would be a particular aspect and sculpting the practice exercise to develop or hone that aspect/technique.